We of course do not build a whole distribution, we only build U-Boot, the kernel and a handful of tools, and then use an existing rootfs to get a useful system. Depending on the rootfs size, you might want to use a 2GB or larger SD Card. SD-card partitioning and formatting will be taken care of later.

Upstream/Mainline U-Boot

If you intend to boot older 3.4.x kernels with mainline U-Boot, make sure you also understand its boot configuration. Some information presented on this page needs to be adjusted accordingly - especially bootm_boot_mode could be important in that case.

Build the kernel

Sunxi/Legacy kernel

Build script.bin

The sunxi kernel depends on Allwinners own hardware description file, called script.bin, which needs to be loaded into memory by the bootloader so that the kernel can access it.